


Symbols

by kateorangesky11



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Mystery Trio AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6136519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateorangesky11/pseuds/kateorangesky11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mystery Trio AU: The Author is visited by a strange being. This is unfinished, and to be honest I don't know if I'll ever finish it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Symbols

**Author's Note:**

> This is back before the name reveal, so Stanley=Author!Stan, Stanford=Grunkle Stan.

Stanley woke with a splitting headache. He winced and draped an arm across his brow to block the bright sunlight coming in through the window. Winter was only just ending, but spring was coming in with a vengeance. The air was still cold, but the sun would not stop shining and the birds wouldn’t shut the fuck up. Stanley rolled over only to grunt as something hard pressed into his side. He shifted, pulling the glasses out from under him, thanking the universe that he hadn’t broken them this time. He set them on the bridge of his nose, pulling himself to a sitting position. He’d fallen asleep on the couch. Again. He was starting to think that maybe he’d just make the couch his permanent bed, seeing as he never seemed to have time to buy a real one. Plus, it’d save him money that way.

Stanley pulled a scarf up from the edge of the couch. It had been sitting in the sunlight, so he put it up to his forehead, using the absorbed heat to nurse his growing headache. He rose and dragged his heavy feet over to the desk, hoping there was still some coffee in the mug there. He picked it up and brought it to his face and was greeted with the sickening smell of mold. He coughed and grimaced, and held the offending mug as far out in front of him as he could as he made his way out of his room and up to the living room. He dumped the mold colony in the sink and downed an ibuprofen. Or two. Or three.

He shuffled through the living room and took a peek down the hall to Ford’s room. The door was open a crack, and there was no foghorn-esque snoring coming from inside. _He must’ve been out all night again_ , Stanley thought. _Jesus, where the hell does he sleep?_ He let the scarf fall from his head to the floor, and was too tired to pick it up. He shuffled back to the kitchen and began to make himself a pot of coffee. As it was brewing, he sat down at the kitchen table, picking up a journal he had left there.

“ _Although I have yet to find definite proof of the undead, I have seen a couple of zombies. They hide out behind trees, in ditches, and occasionally at Greasy’s Diner. Though those may in fact be teenagers. Sometimes it’s hard to tell_ ,” it read. Stanley flipped to another page and began to absent-mindedly doodle some of the area of the forest he had explored yesterday. Mushroom here, mushroom there, more mushrooms there…

A loud crack woke Stanley with a start. “Hey, bro-bro!” he heard Ford say, but as Stanley looked, all he could see was a vaguely Ford-shaped blur. He readjusted his glasses, noting how his arm was red from where they had dug into his skin while he was asleep.

Ford stepped into the room, flinging down a grey duffle bag and pulling the headphones he was wearing down to rest around his neck. He pressed a button on his Walkman, and flung the whole device onto the coffee table.

“Whoa, bro, you didn’t sleep there the whole night, did you?” Ford asked, crossing into the kitchen to turn of the coffeemaker that was now full of freshly burned coffee. The device made the whole house smell sweet and bitter all at the same time.

“No, I woke up a while back with a crazy headache, but I guess I must’ve dozed off again,” Stanley replied, unsticking a piece of paper from his writing hand.

“Oh, you’re having those headaches again?” Ford asked, blasting the coffee pot with hot water.

“Yeah. I don’t know what causes them. Caffeine? Dehydration maybe?”

“Or maybe all of that damn research you do. I swear you can’t go a day without finding some new dangerous thing to play with.”

A chuckle fell out of Stanley’s throat. He pulled his journal toward him. “Says the guy who comes home with new bruises every other day.”

“That’s different. I’m training…” Ford kept speaking, but Stanley didn’t hear him. Instead, he was gazing down at a message written on the next page of his journal. He tore it out, staring at the ink. The handwriting was definitely his, but he had no recollection of writing it. At the top there were two sets of letters, written over and over again: _EGASSEM SDRAWKCAB_. Underneath was a message written in his own secret code:  _I can help you, Stan Pines._

Stanley felt a chill run down his spine. His fingers brushed over his name, and just then he noticed the ink staining his writing hand. Had he written this? When? And why didn’t he remember it? Was someone trying to mess with him? But who else knew his code? He had only just created it. He hadn’t even told Stanford about it yet. He would, soon. But how could someone else know it?

“…and you shoulda seen his face, Lee. It was hilarious. Hey, you okay?”

Stanley hurriedly flipped over the piece of paper, surreptitiously sliding it under the journal. He pulled his face into a semblance of a smile.

“Yeah, these headaches are just killer. I wish I was there, bro, it sounds like you had a good time.”

“It was. Sorry I didn’t come home, it just got a little crazy.”

“Don’t worry about it, Ford. As long as you’re okay I don’t care where you are.”

Stanford poured two mugs of coffee and brought one over to his brother, along with three ibuprofen tablets. “Okay, bro,” he said, ruffling Stanley’s hair, “I’m gonna go take a nap. Get to feeling better, alright? If that brain of yours goes, then who knows where we’d be?” Stanley smiled as he left, and then took the three tabs of ibuprofen. Four, five, six.

Stanley slipped out the mysterious page, carrying it with him outside. It was midday, but the sky was so covered in clouds that one could hardly tell what time it was. The lack of sunshine sucked all of the color from the earth around him; the grass was faded and the grey trees cast long, dark shadows in the clearing around the house. If Stanley had been listening closer, he would have heard how the incessant chirping of the birds had stopped, how even his own footsteps no longer made any sound. But Stanley was fully engrossed in this mystery on the paper he held in between his fingers.

He rolled the letters of the message around in his mouth, wondering if, when said out loud, they would make any sense. He formed the sounds again and again, and the earth around him began to tilt. The clouds in the sky moved in a circle, rotating around him. A wind whipped through the trees, causing them to lean at unnatural angles. Still Stanley said the words again and again, his curiosity overcoming his fear.

He began to hear a noise, soft enough that it was almost inaudible, and Stanley felt it rather than heard it. It began as a sensation at the base of his skull, as if someone was electrocuting him in slow motion, the sparks radiating at a snail’s pace from that point. The feeling made his hair stand on end. The noise grew, a tone that seemed to rise forever and ever into oblivion, never beginning and never ending. A whisper came with the tone, and once again, Stanley seemed to feel it rather than hear it.

_“I’M HERE TO HELP YOU, STAN PINES.”_

Stan tried to reply, but his mouth wouldn’t obey him. His lips churned out the chant again and again.

 _“BUT I NEED_ YOUR _HELP FIRST. JUST THINK, KID. I’LL HEAR YOU.”_

 _How?_ Stan thought.

_“LIKE THIS.”_

_You heard me?_

_“YES. JEEZ, I THOUGHT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SMART ONE.”_

_Where are we?_

_“IT’S CALLED THE MINDSCAPE. I’D EXPLAIN IT, BUT I DON’T FEEL LIKE IT. ANYWAY, YOU’RE A MYSTERY SEEKER, RIGHT?”_ An eerie laugh echoed in the back of Stanley’s mind. _“OF COURSE YOU ARE. I CAN TELL. I’VE BEEN NOTICING YOU AROUND TOWN. YOU SEEM TO BE GETTING QUITE A NAME AROUND HERE. WHAT IF I TOLD YOU I COULD GIVE YOU ACCESS TO MORE KNOWLEDGE THAN YOUR PUNY LITTLE MIND COULD DREAM OF?”_

Stanley’s heart beat a little faster. _The mysteries of this town?_

_“THIS TOWN, THE NEXT TOWN, THE WORLD, THE UNIVERSE—SECRETS YOU COULDN’T EVEN IMAGINE. THEY’RE YOURS FOR THE TAKING. THAT IS, IF YOU’LL HELP ME OUT.”_

A flash of red, orange, and gold appeared in front of Stanley. He jumped back, startled. The flames concentrated themselves into a single point and that point began to move, leaving a trail behind it. It was as if some invisible hand was writing on the air before him. T…R…I…A…

_“I CAN’T HELP YOU IN THIS FORM, BUT IF YOU SAY THESE WORDS, YOU WILL SUMMON ME.”_

N…G…U…L…U…M…

_“FROM THEN ON WE CAN WORK TOGETHER. WHAT DO YOU SAY?”_

_Who are you?_ Stanley thought. E…N…T…A…N…

 _“A FRIEND.”_ G…U…L…U…M…

_How do I know I can trust you?_

_“LIKE I SAID, I’M A FRIEND. YOU TRUST YOUR FRIENDS, DON’T YOU?”_ The same eerie laugh came again, sending chills down Stanley’s spine. _“OF COURSE YOU DO. JUST THINK ON IT, KID. DON’T WORRY, I’LL BE THERE IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS. ISN’T THAT NICE OF ME?”_

The flames finished their writing, and the message branded itself into Stanley’s brain. _“SMELL YOU LATER, GLASSES!”_

For the third time that day, Stanley woke with a start. He was lying on his back on the ground in the front yard, staring directly at a large nose.

“McGucket!” Stanley yelped, bolting upright. He put a hand to his temple, trying to stop the dizziness that came with the head rush.

“Stanley, are you alright?” The man was quiet and always seemed to be nervous, constantly clutching at his coat or adjusting his round glasses. He was a genius inventor, though, and Stanley valued his input.

“Yeah, just haven’t gotten enough sleep the last little bit. I was just taking a little nap,” Stanley replied, dusting some bits of grass from his shirt and pants.

“In the middle of the yard?” Fiddleford frowned.

“It’s good for you. Sleeping under the stars and all that.” Stanley flung a large arm around Fiddleford’s small shoulders. “So what brings you to my humble abode this fine day?”

“Well I wanted to tell you that I’m going to be gone tomorrow, I have a personal matter to attend to.”

“Do you? What is it, if I may ask?” Stanley led the man inside. Ford’s door was still shut. Good. He’s probably still asleep.

“It’s my son’s birthday.”

“Oh, right! Tell him Stan says ‘Happy Birthday.’” He set Fiddleford down on the couch and went to the kitchen to cook breakfast.

“But both of you are–” Fiddleford started, though he immediately regretted it. A large, maniacal grin broke out on Stanley’s face, and he ran back to the kitchen doorway.

“EXACTLY!!” he boomed delightedly. He shook with laughter. It was a dumb joke, one that the brothers had been playing since they were little. Although Fiddleford should’ve known better by now, he always found himself playing into the twin’s hands at least once a month. The man sighed and adjusted his glasses as Stanley let his chuckles carry him into the kitchen.

“Ah, you gotta learn to cheer up, Professor.” He pulled a box of cereal from the cupboard. “You take life too seriously, and believe me, when you’ve seen the shit we have, you can’t afford to do that. You’ve got to laugh off the monsters.”


End file.
